There is a conventional optical disk apparatus provided with an opening in a front panel of the drive for allowing a disk tray to go in/out through the opening. In this optical disk apparatus, an optical disk is mounted on the disk tray come out through the opening, and thereafter, the optical disk is drawn into a predetermined position inside the drive together with the disk tray.
This type of optical disk apparatus is configured such that, after an optical disk is drawn into and held in the inside of the drive, a turn table rises from a predetermined lowered position to a predetermined raised position so that the optical disk is mounted on the turn table, and the optical disk is held sandwiched between the turn table and a member called a damper provided in a position opposed to the turn table.
And, in this condition, the optical disk is rotated at a predetermined number of revolutions by rotation of the turn table.
In the case of a reproducing operation, for example, a signal recorded on this optical disk is reproduced by a recording and reproduction device. That is, an optical pickup for reading a signal is reciprocated between the outer peripheral side and inner peripheral side of the optical disk in accordance with the tracking position of a signal recorded in a predetermined range of the optical disk, so that reproduction of a predetermined information signal is achieved.
As such optical disk apparatus, a drive as shown in Patent document 1, for example, is disclosed.
The optical disk apparatus disclosed in Patent document 1, as basic operations requiring a driving force given by a motor and the like, requires four operations in total: a disk transporting operation of reciprocating a disk tray between the inside and outside of the drive to transport an optical disk to the inside or outside of the device; a turn table raising/lowering operation of reciprocating a turn table between a predetermined lowered position and a predetermined raised position; a disk rotating operation of rotationally driving the turn table to rotate the optical disk; and a pickup moving operation of reciprocating an optical pickup between the outer peripheral side and inner peripheral side of the optical disk.
The optical disk apparatus of Patent document 1 is configured such that three operations in total of the disk transporting operation, turn table raising/lowering operation and pickup moving operation are carried out sequentially with a single motor, and all the operations including the disk rotating operation are carried out with two motors in total.
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-185771 (FIG. 5)
The above-described conventional optical disk apparatus is configured to mount an optical disk on the disk tray, and is not adapted to what is called a slot-in type of directly loading/unloading an optical disk.